Questions that do not deserve a thread

[Einzelherz]

Followup: What is this rackmount looking object I keep seeing on top of PVMs in photos?

e.g.:

[Xan]

This is a BVM and it's an external control unit.

[donluca]

I use Klipsch Promedia 2.1.

Or if he wants to go big, I suggest investing in a TA2024 class T amplifier and a pair of Andrew Jones' SP-B22 speakers.
You can get good Sure TA2024 for ~20€ and the speakers for less than 100€ if you're patient. This will serve you not only as an exceptional setup for your retrogaming stuff, but it will be a very good entry level hi-fi setup for your music (as long as you stuck to near-field listening of course... the TA2024 is not that powerful).

[Mytus]

Apologies if this counts as double posting, I did make a thread about this issue I'm having, but maybe it's better suited here:

I recently got a PVM-20M4A and it's been great for the past week. I've recently made the mistake of turning the PVM off while playing Super Smash Bros. Melee on a PAL GameCube in 60hz, leaving the GameCube on, and turning the PVM back on about an hour later.

As a result, the 20M4A is not switching over to 60hz automatically anymore, producing a garbled image that is similar to when sync is not setup properly. When I play Melee in 50hz, the image looks fine. My PAL SNES also looks fine (presumably because it's running in 50hz), however my Super Famicom produces similar results to the PAL GameCube playing Melee in 60hz.

Any suggestions on how to fix this issue? I can't seem to find a manual toggle in the menu or service menu to force it into 60hz, nor can I find any other fix. Very concerned I now have a 50kg paper weight on my hands, and with an NTSC-J 64 and an Everdrive coming in the mail I am anxious to fix this.

Edit: Here's a video showing what exactly is happening (excuse the background chatter!). https://vid.me/dqiK

Thanks for any assistance you might be able to provide me.

[Mishrak109]

I'm looking at picking up a Component A/V Switch and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on which ones to buy and which ones to avoid.

There's a couple of $20 ones floating around out there but I don't want to buy something cheap and not have it work.

[Einzelherz]

I'm looking at picking up a Component A/V Switch and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on which ones to buy and which ones to avoid.

There's a couple of $20 ones floating around out there but I don't want to buy something cheap and not have it work.

There's a passive one on Amazon that i bought recently and it's fantastic.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003ANXHWM
I rolled the dice on it specifically because it doesn't require power. Very happy with it.

[lev11]

Anyone know where I can source fully populated 'Multi Out'/ 'Analog AV Out' connectors for SNES/ N64/ Gamecube please?

I've bought a few composite video leads from ebay (via China) and only one had more than four pins inside (not sure which one it was now either).

[Einzelherz]

I would contact retro console accessories on eBay and either see if she'll sell you some or tell you her source. She's always been very helpful, albeit a little delayed.

[creamygarlicdip]

Hi Guys,

I'm really enjoying my sega saturn i picked up with the ram cart, street fighter zero 3 is terrific port.

That said i'm thinking ill get a 27" crt tube tv second hand and connect it to that via s-video.

On the other hand after reading through fudohs extensive writing on various methods of outputting 240p RGB its a very appealing prospect. I have a question:

what would you say is the minimum effective dose in terms of hardware for converting a sega saturn with the rgb scart cable to my samsung 46" led 1080p that has component and hdmi input. The samsung tv itself has the ability to switch picture modes to 4:3, 16:9.

I understand I would need a converter/upscaler and a scanline generator. But i wanted to know what you guys would recommend as the minimum quality of hardware setup to make this worth doing. the xrgb's ive seen online are out of my price range. I'm thinking a solution thats 100-200 tops.

[Einzelherz]

Hi Guys,

I'm really enjoying my sega saturn i picked up with the ram cart, street fighter zero 3 is terrific port.

That said i'm thinking ill get a 27" crt tube tv second hand and connect it to that via s-video.

On the other hand after reading through fudohs extensive writing on various methods of outputting 240p RGB its a very appealing prospect. I have a question:

what would you say is the minimum effective dose in terms of hardware for converting a sega saturn with the rgb scart cable to my samsung 46" led 1080p that has component and hdmi input. The samsung tv itself has the ability to switch picture modes to 4:3, 16:9.

I understand I would need a converter/upscaler and a scanline generator. But i wanted to know what you guys would recommend as the minimum quality of hardware setup to make this worth doing. the xrgb's ive seen online are out of my price range. I'm thinking a solution thats 100-200 tops.

If your TV can accept 240p over component you can go with a ~$50 CSY-2100 clone, often found on ebay or amazon that look something like this:



This just translates the RGB analog signal into a YPbPr analog signal and introduces no lag.

I've found the easiest way to see if your TV will accept 240p over component is one of the following: PS2 with component cables playing a PS1 game or any old 240p console with a composite video signal (yellow plug) hooked into the green component plug while the TV is set to component AV in. If you get a picture with either of these, your TV won't need an upscaler.

I personally don't mind the look without scanlines on my HDTV, but if you need those, my advice here might not be valuable.

[creamygarlicdip]

Hi Guys,

I'm really enjoying my sega saturn i picked up with the ram cart, street fighter zero 3 is terrific port.

That said i'm thinking ill get a 27" crt tube tv second hand and connect it to that via s-video.

On the other hand after reading through fudohs extensive writing on various methods of outputting 240p RGB its a very appealing prospect. I have a question:

what would you say is the minimum effective dose in terms of hardware for converting a sega saturn with the rgb scart cable to my samsung 46" led 1080p that has component and hdmi input. The samsung tv itself has the ability to switch picture modes to 4:3, 16:9.

I understand I would need a converter/upscaler and a scanline generator. But i wanted to know what you guys would recommend as the minimum quality of hardware setup to make this worth doing. the xrgb's ive seen online are out of my price range. I'm thinking a solution thats 100-200 tops.

If your TV can accept 240p over component you can go with a ~$50 CSY-2100 clone, often found on ebay or amazon that look something like this:



This just translates the RGB analog signal into a YPbPr analog signal and introduces no lag.

I've found the easiest way to see if your TV will accept 240p over component is one of the following: PS2 with component cables playing a PS1 game or any old 240p console with a composite video signal (yellow plug) hooked into the green component plug while the TV is set to component AV in. If you get a picture with either of these, your TV won't need an upscaler.

I personally don't mind the look without scanlines on my HDTV, but if you need those, my advice here might not be valuable.

Cool, yah i have a playstation 2 with component cables, and my tv does accept 240p. I've fed it 240p signal via wii over component and it says 240p on the tv's resolution display.

[Mishrak109]

I'm looking at picking up a Component A/V Switch and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on which ones to buy and which ones to avoid.

There's a couple of $20 ones floating around out there but I don't want to buy something cheap and not have it work.

There's a passive one on Amazon that i bought recently and it's fantastic.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003ANXHWM
I rolled the dice on it specifically because it doesn't require power. Very happy with it.

I picked one of these up and it works brilliantly. I'm thankful for your input.

[emphatic]

When hooking up my Lenovo laptop (Intel HD Graphics 4000) to my UVC, the UVC reports the input as 640x480 (when I set the screen mirroring to 640x480@60 32bit) but the computer's picture doesn't show up, just the UVC test screen. If I set the PC to 800x600@60 32bit, the picture works and is stable etc. If I output in 1024x768@60 32bit, the screen flickers, even though it's a supported input resolution.

I've tried more than one VGA cable, but I still get the same results. I don't remember having this problem before (with my old HP laptop that also had Intel graphics IIRC)... My XBox 360 works fine at 480p, so does my DC.

[BlackStealth08]

So I bought some cables and adapters to connect my Sony PVM to my computer. It is receiving picture but it's altered and constantly moving up and down like the V-sync is off even though the V Sync is correct. I have the Sync cable plugged in everything.

The top picture I hooked it up to my main gaming PC, the bottom 2 was when I tried an older DELL computer. The strange thing was, when I first turned on the Dell machine the picture wasn't moving while the DELL logo was showing, but once it started booting the bios it was would move again.

Spoiler

I had to play with the V-sync knob on the back to get it centered exactly perfect just to get it to not move any more. I've tried everything to get a stable picture nothing works. The image appears split and unless the have the V sync dead center it will move like crazy. Any ideas what the problem is?

[Fudoh]

The picture in the middle (with the two Dell logos next to each other) means that you're feeding a 31khz signal into a 15khz monitor. So I simply assume that the other two show your monitor receiving even higher frequencies.

By this you will damage your monitor. First you want to make sure that your PC does output in 15khz and only then you want to connect it to your monitor.

[BlackStealth08]

The picture in the middle (with the two Dell logos next to each other) means that you're feeding a 31khz signal into a 15khz monitor. So I simply assume that the other two show your monitor receiving even higher frequencies.

By this you will damage your monitor. First you want to make sure that your PC does output in 15khz and only then you want to connect it to your monitor.

Ah thanks for the advice I didn't realize it could be damaging.

I figured it was a frequency issue but I highly doubt my PC does that low. I looked it up and my GTX 970 doesn't work in 15khz. I found this website I believe this can work. My Dell machine has a ATI Radeon X600. I want to say it can run in 15khz. http://retrorgb.com/rgbvideocard.html

[bobrocks95]

I don't suppose anybody's ever seen an Audio Authority 1155 or 1166 video switch before, have they? I just got one and it's not auto-detecting any signal; pressing the auto button is supposed to make a little "Auto" symbol appear on-screen in the corner, but does nothing...

[CkRtech]

I believe Audio Authority products with auto switching use the audio signal to identify a powered up device. Are you running audio to the switch as well, or only video?

[BlackStealth08]

So I got it working. Fiddled with it a bit.

Resolution is being a pain can't get it perfect not too worried. Decided to load some emulators, loaded ZSNES. My only question is why when I have ZSNES in full screen does it move downward in an infinete loop?

It can't be a frequency issue, I mean the settings are perftect. Runs at 15khz.

Spoiler

edit: Never mind I figured it out the V-sync needed to be adjusted.

Thanks for the little help provided. Decided to play Pokemon, gorgeous picture, I just wish I had a camera that was capable of capturing it better.

Spoiler

[McCracAttack]

Has anyone ever had trouble with a PVM experiencing "color shift" using component video? I have one where the colors seem to misalign horizontally when it's on an input that's set to component. RGB on the other hand looks just fine. Here's the strange part, the PVM's on screen menus are affected as well. I can literally turn the problem on and off just by switching an input from RGB to component. Here are some pics:

Spoiler

[bobrocks95]

I believe Audio Authority products with auto switching use the audio signal to identify a powered up device. Are you running audio to the switch as well, or only video?

I'll double-check tomorrow but I believe I was running audio at the time. Other things seem messed up too, like I can't switch between residential and professional modes, so I tried a firmware update to no avail. I'll fiddle around some more later in the week.

[Immryr]

i recently got a new trinitron tv (thanks tetsuo) and the picture is great when i've connected my sega systems with RGB scart cables, however when i tried to hook up my nes with a composite cable, either through the scart connection in the back or the yellow rca on the front i get a black and white picture. the tv and nes are both from the uk so that isn't the issue. anyone have any ideas what causes this or how to get round it short of rgb modding my nes?

[creamygarlicdip]

I'm curious why pc video input cards and software haven't done this, or maybe they have and im not aware of it:

say for instance a video input pci-e card, i could connect all my old game consoles to my pc, then the pc could add post processing like scanlines and excellent upscaling algorithms and then output the image to my big led tv.

it could do all the same stuff devices like the xrgb does.

[beatsgo]

I'm curious why pc video input cards and software haven't done this, or maybe they have and im not aware of it:

say for instance a video input pci-e card, i could connect all my old game consoles to my pc, then the pc could add post processing like scanlines and excellent upscaling algorithms and then output the image to my big led tv.

it could do all the same stuff devices like the xrgb does.

You could do that, but you'll be dealing with latency and probably a bulky setup that needs to be stationary.

[Immryr]

i recently got a new trinitron tv (thanks tetsuo) and the picture is great when i've connected my sega systems with RGB scart cables, however when i tried to hook up my nes with a composite cable, either through the scart connection in the back or the yellow rca on the front i get a black and white picture. the tv and nes are both from the uk so that isn't the issue. anyone have any ideas what causes this or how to get round it short of rgb modding my nes?

no one got any ideas about this? the tv model number is KV M2541U and the problem is not isolated to my nes, anything i try to conect with composite shows up black and white.

[BazookaBen]

no one got any ideas about this? the tv model number is KV M2541U and the problem is not isolated to my nes, anything i try to conect with composite shows up black and white.

I've never seen that happen before. Maybe check your chroma/color value in the menu? I know you will get black and white if you turn that all the way down. If that doesn't work, look up your service manual and see if there is any service menu setting that might affect composite video.

[Immryr]

ahahahahahahaha what an idiot. i hadn't even checked the colour value setting as the rgb stuff was perfect..... i guess the rgb signal isn't effected by the menu settings? well that is that mystery solved.

[BazookaBen]

ahahahahahahaha what an idiot. i hadn't even checked the colour value setting as the rgb stuff was perfect..... i guess the rgb signal isn't effected by the menu settings? well that is that mystery solved.

Haha, I was stumped for a second too before I remembered to apply Occam's Razor.

Yeah, color/chroma doesn't effect RGB on my PVM either. Another member said that's due to how the electronics work, it would just change the contrast on each color

[LordHypnos]

Does anyone know what the best way would be to adjust the screen geometry on my PC monitor for my Xbox 360's VGA signal? Running it at 1024x768. For my Dreamcast I use the 240p test suite's red box pattern thing (can't remember what it's called).

[BazookaBen]

Does anyone know what the best way would be to adjust the screen geometry on my PC monitor for my Xbox 360's VGA signal? Running it at 1024x768. For my Dreamcast I use the 240p test suite's red box pattern thing (can't remember what it's called).

You have to adjust the geometry independently for each scan rate. So any adjustments you make to 480p from the Dreamcast won't carry over to 1024x768. Your best bet is to either hook up a PC and load test patterns at 1024x768, or load the test patterns on your 360. I don't know if the 360 lets you look at image files directly (the PS3 does), but you could always go to lagom.nl in your 360's Internet Explorer